


we lie at the end of the world

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-11-29 08:41:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11437248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Alex is in her bed when she shouldn't be, has a mark that only her pairbond should have and all Kara can wonder is how they got there, how this gorgeous Omega could want someone like her, someone who can't give her what she needs to survive in this harsh world of theirs.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a few notes before I begin.
> 
> I marked this as mature, but I don't think this will be smut.
> 
> Kara doesn't have a knot. You'll see how that works out later on. 
> 
> Kudos to Alsike for helping me work out quite a bit of this world before I even started writing. You rock and you guys should read her Lucy/Alura fic. It's a much better ABO exploration than this.

It starts when she turns eighteen. Her coming of age is celebrated throughout the community, a feast of sorts reminiscent of the times before, the times when her people had been even less advanced than the humans they’d conquered.

Kara knows this, remembers the lessons about clan wars, about lives ruled by illogic and passion without restraint. She remembers the way it had disturbed the peace of the planet, the way truth and synergy was pushed aside in favour of selfish desire and covetous ambition.

She remembers the stories, remembers the way her mother’s eyes had flashed when she’d found out she’d been told the harsher parts of their history before the feast. Aunt Astra had been amused, had taken her by the waist and nuzzled her neck, distracting her long enough for Kara to leave. She’d watched them then, wondered but never asked.

Stroking her fingers through Alex’s hair six years later, she wonders when everything had become so complicated, wonders what would have happened if she hadn’t jumped in, pulled her away from Kru-El. She bends down, kisses her head and closes her eyes.

“You’re mine, Alex,” she whispers, fingers moving down her throat to her collarbone, “and I’m yours. They can’t…they can’t take you from me.”

She rests her forehead against Alex’s, pulls her hand out of her shirt and wraps it around her waist. Her temperature is high, uncomfortably so, but Kara doesn’t do much more than nuzzle her, moves down to lick at the bite mark on her neck.

“Mm, Kara…” Alex shifts, turns and tangles her fingers in her hair, pulls her closer.

“How is it?”

Alex whines. “Hurts…”

Kara rubs her stomach, bites down a little.

“I wish we could, but Mother is still here.”

“Please…”

She sighs. “You know we can’t. If they found out, they’d pull us apart.”

“Don’t care.” Alex flips over, looks at her with pleading eyes. “You and me against the world, remember? It’s supposed to be us.”

Kara closes her eyes, tears falling. She knows that, remembers the promise they’d made to each other when they were younger, but she can’t risk it. Alex is everything to her, everything she needs and biting her was bad enough. She can’t protect her if anyone finds out, can’t let Alex give herself up to save her.

Still, when Alex whines against her, her heart breaks a little more. She wants to give her everything she wants, wants to make the pain go away. Her fingers itch to touch her and, not for the first time, she wishes she could knot her, could claim her the way she wants to.

“Alex…”

She nuzzles her, presses hot, open mouthed kisses against her skin. Alex tastes of salt, of sweat and something darker, richer. It makes Kara ache for her, makes her fingers curl against her will.

“Alex…”

“Please, Kara…”

“We…we can’t…”

“Hurts…”

Alex’s hand creeps to her back, pulling her closer and Kara’s tears fall as she presses kisses against her neck and jaw. Alex needs her, needs this and she can’t just say no, can’t just deny her when she’s in so much pain, and so she gives in, takes what Alex is offering.

“Okay…okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

Her body feels hot. It’s not a new sensation, she thinks as she meets Lucy’s eye in the crowd. She knows that there’s an omega in heat somewhere near, an omega so burning with need that she can smell the desire and need pouring off of every alpha in the vicinity. That they’re Kryptonian makes her grind her teeth, makes her want to rip out someone’s throat before they can claim this person, but it would not do for someone of her House to show such emotions.

She has to ball her fists, stay in place as she watches young Kal step up to his Ascension. He’s too young, she thinks, still too much of an infant to truly understand this, but Jor-El has no heirs, no chance for another without Lara. Kal must do this soon, must take up the mantle of their House just as she did.

Kara turns away briefly, sees Lucy again as she approaches the omega in heat. A girl scarcely older than she herself is, she notes. She’s beautiful, but there’s a sharpness about her that catches Kara’s attention more than anything else, a protectiveness that seems to radiate even through the cloying haze of her pheromones.

Kara watches Lucy whisper briefly to her, pull her along behind her as she departs. As a Lane, she has precedence, even as an omega, so she isn’t questioned, isn’t stopped, and for that Kara is grateful. The unknown omega should be in a room somewhere, surrounded by a comforting scent and pillows to get her through this, if not a heat-partner that knows how to treat her as she likes. She shouldn’t be out here, shouldn’t be witness to the transformation of a boy into a man decades too soon.

At that thought, she turns back to Kal, watches, as if from a distance, as Jor-El begins the ceremony, blesses him in the old languages and words of their faith. She shivers as she feels the loss of Rao, the emptiness instinctive to their people now that they can no longer feel his blessing on their skin. That Kal and his generation will never know this feeling isn’t lost on her, is a cold comfort in the hollow echo of her heart.

“You are troubled by all of this pomp and circumstance, as the humans would call it, Little One?”

She doesn’t turn to her aunt, knows that she can’t now that the ceremony has truly begun. Still, she nods imperceptibly, only the tiniest of movements that Astra would catch if she’s looking. Kara knows she is, knows that she pays more attention to her than she does to Kal and Jor-El.

“I must admit, while I have no scorn for this particular tradition, Jor-El’s pushing of a _child_ to partake in it is rather distasteful.”

She hums her agreement, doesn’t dare say anything out loud. There are ears everywhere, people who could ruin her future with a word and what would it say if she failed to upkeep her House’s golden reputation?

“I will say, it was rather gracious of you to agree to share it at your own coming of age, my heart.”

This is safe. She can answer this.

“I love Kal as if he were my own brother, Aunt Astra. I would not wish for him to go through this alone when I can be of help in any way that I can.”

Astra is the one to hum her agreement this time. She knows that her aunt is displeased, that there’s something she wishes to say but won’t, but Kara doesn’t allow herself the luxury of inquiring after it. She doesn’t allow herself the satisfaction of questioning the great General of the Nation in public where she can’t engage her in debate.

She feels suffocated by it all, feels the way it chokes at her the way that the omega’s heat pheromones did. Though, this is less desire and more a pressing weight that won’t let her breathe, won’t let her come up for air when she needs it most.

A hand on her shoulder, Astra’s alpha scent surrounding her. She wears it proudly, displays it at the most inopportune times for Kara’s amusement, and she smiles at the tensing of Jor-El’s shoulders before covering her mouth with her hand. Solidarity, unity. She needs to remember those things, to uphold them to the best of her ability.

“Aunt Astra…”

“Just reminding you that I am here, Little One. Unity of the people is one of our virtues, after all.”

She shakes her head, smile smaller but just as real now. Her aunt calms her, makes her feel at peace when inside of her feels like a torment of the mind and body. She needs that, needs the reminder that there is an alpha who will care for her, who will guide her until she can take up the title for herself.

She settles against her, leans into the hand on her shoulder just a bit as she watches the ceremony. She can focus better now, can force herself to pay attention to her uncle without wanting to run across the pedestal and steal Kal away before he can finish. She pushes the thought down, plasters a large smile on her face as he finishes the ceremony and leads Kal away.

It’s only after the room is empty that Kara sinks into Astra, lets her envelop her completely. She trembles against her, the roiling of emotions finally allowed to rise to a crescendo as it crashes against the walls of her mind. She flinches from the force of it, buries her face in Astra’s chest.

“I wish your mother could be here, Little One. She has always been excellent at calming you when you need it most, but I’m afraid she is offworld, bartering with the Guardians on Oa, is she not?”

Kara nods. “It’s okay, Aunt Astra. This is helping.”

Astra strokes her hair. “I hope so. Jor-El is going to be insufferable during your feast now that his son has ascended and I, for one, lack your father’s patience with him.”

Kara smiles against her. “You lack patience on the whole.”

Astra’s laughter echoes in her ears and she thinks, maybe it won’t be so bad after all, this feast of hers. Maybe she might even be able to get through it in one piece.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’re being twitchy,” Lucy hisses at her. “You should have just stayed at home if this was going to be a problem. You know that Alex, so what’s the big deal with you today?”

She whimpers, grips Lucy’s arm as she buries her face in her shoulder. It hurts, it hurts so much and she knows that she should be in her den, that she should be surrounding herself with warmth and comforting scents in the absence of an alpha, but she can’t help herself. She needs to see them, needs to know what her father has died for if she is to go on.

Lucy sighs, runs her fingers through Alex’s hair and she relaxes a little. Lucy is safe, familiar. She doesn’t help with the pain, but she is the perfect placebo. She nuzzles her hand, clutches tightly at the older woman’s sleeve as she forces herself to look up.

The El boy is a slight thing, she thinks, unfit for ruling. He’s just a child, just a baby barely older than the kids at the shelter. Looking at him, she wants to throw up, to spill her guts out as she wonders at the brutality of a system that would force someone like him to grow up so quickly.

“Hey, are you okay?”

She shakes her head, ducks down again at Lucy’s question. There are too many alphas here, too many eyes on her as she struggles to process what she’s seeing through the haze of the heat, the need to breed that makes her shake and sweat. She whines against her, butts her head on her arm before Lucy turns, tilts her up to meet her eyes.

“We can leave if you want. My friend says that it’s not compulsory for omegas to be here, for anyone really. If you need it, we can find Winn again, see if he can help you.”

She shakes her head, presses closer to Lucy. She wants to leave, wants to stay, needs to stay. She has to see this through, has to meet the eyes of at least one of the alphas who rules over them and see what her father saw, figure out what his legacy is when he’s left her with nothing.

She can’t do this, but she has to. She has to stay here, has to watch this sickening display of pomp and circumstance for someone who probably doesn’t know anything about the way humans live, the way they thrive. She has to stay to see what Lucy sees, what she’s bought into with that unknown alpha she visits during heat.

Lucy shifts, gives her room to breathe as her chest stops moving. Alex has to look up then, has to see what makes her stop breathing, stop living for even a moment in time. She knows Lucy Lane, knows that she lives for the moment she meets her goals, never stops, never pauses. She knows her and she has to see this, has to see what makes her stop, makes her wait when she’d rather go.

The first thing she sees is golden hair. It frames her face like a halo, turns her into Apollo on his chariot until all she can see is light and something else, something she can’t define when she looks at her. She’s pretty, prettier than every other girl Alex has seen except maybe Lucy, but Lucy, she thinks, is something special, something that only ever comes once in a lifetime.

Still, Alex is thrown by her beauty, struck by the way she isn’t so much beautiful as she wears it like a mask, like something to hide behind in her obvious discomfort. She wears it with the regality of a goddess, she thinks, wears it with the kind of authority that someone her age, someone _Alex’s_ age should never have, should never know.

“Lucy…”

“I know…”

Alex swallows, watches as she meets her eyes, watches as she furrows her brows. The heat is taking over, making her shake so much she can barely stand, but she tries to ignore it, tries to ignore the eyes on her, hungry, wanting, needing to dominate her. She whimpers, turns into Lucy and cries, her body barely holding itself together as the need hits her hard, hits her with something she can barely resist.

Lucy grips her arm, holds her up as she leads her away. She can’t believe this is happening, can’t believe that it turned out like this when she was so close to seeing it, to knowing what her father knew.

“Lucy…”

“I know, Alex. Come on. If you want to make it to the feast thing they’re having we need to get you home now. I promise it’ll be over soon, okay? Just give us a few more minutes and we’ll have you feeling good as new, I promise.”

* * *

 

Alex whines a little as Winn pulls the syringe away, wipes at her skin with the gauze. She hates this part, hates the fog that comes over her, dampens her emotions when he administers the suppressants, but she knows that it’s necessary, that her father wouldn’t have designed something to hurt her.

It’s meant to help, meant to mimic the effects of betas without the constant need of having one nearby, but she hates it, hates that she can’t _feel_. Lucy strokes her hair and she presses her face against her shoulder, whines again as the fog hits.

“It’s okay Alex. Ride it out, babe. Let the suppressants take effect and then we can get you to that feast, okay? Remember the feast? You said you wanted to go.”

She nods, watches as Winn looks at her with a frown. As if through a distance, she can hear them talking, can hear them arguing, but she doesn’t understand it, doesn’t understand anything they’re saying. She tries to reach for it, tries to grasp it with her limited comprehension skills, but she can’t and so she fades a little.

Lucy frowns at her, makes the kind of face she always mocks her for, and Alex grins, reaches up and grabs her nose. It tries to get away from her, but she doesn’t let it, grasping tightly, ignoring Lucy’s yelp of pain as she squeezes quite a bit.

She smiles at her, hopes it looks roguish and dashing instead of dopey and off. She can’t do off if she doesn’t know what she’s performing for. She doesn’t even know if she’s performing, if tonight is actually a night off and not Lucy paying the consequences for something she did again.

“You’re my best friend, Lucy Lane. You’re so pretty and awesome and you actually like kids! Who knew?”

Lucy sighs, tugs her close as she looks at Winn in what Alex thinks is pretty despair. She wants to touch her, to soothe the lines of worry that mar her face, but she can’t seem to make her hands move in the right direction, can’t seem to get them to do what she wants when all she wants is to make Lucy looks pretty again.

“Winn, how soon until this wears off?”

She turns to Winn, opens her arms and tugs him close. His scent is comforting, a better balm on the remnants of her pain than Lucy’s is. She always forgets, until moments like this, that he’s an alpha, that he’s a danger.

He hugs her, pushes her away with a blush. She doesn’t understand until she remembers the last time they hugged during her heat, remembers the way he’d faltered before even looking at her. She doesn’t understand until she remembers that this is Winn, and then she pulls back, frowns.

“Sorry.”

“It’s…it’s fine. I mean, you have the suppressants, right? So there should be no effect and…I’m just gonna go now.”

She giggles as he disappears, lolls her head to the side and looks at Lucy. Under her gaze, the other woman shifts, moves her weight from one side to the other. She’s uncomfortable, Alex can tell, and it makes her grin as she gets up, approaches her with something like a predatory grin.

Lucy backs up, eyes wide, hands held in front of her. “Now Danvers, you know I love you but if you come near me with those fingers, I’ll break your hands.”

She stops, quirks an eyebrow before tackling her, digging her fingers into Lucy’s sides. They fall to the ground, Lucy giggling all the way, and for a moment, Alex feels normal, feels like the fog and the heat aren’t there. She likes it this way, prefers this to the numbness and the pain, but she knows it can’t last, can already feel the way it crowds on the edges of her sanity.

“Hey, you okay?” Lucy’s eyes are concerned, wide with something like fear but for what, Alex doesn’t actually know. “I know the meds aren’t the best that we could get this time, but they’re supposed to help.”

She doesn’t want her to know, doesn’t want her to stop her from doing what she needs to, so Alex does the only thing she can do. She lies.


End file.
